


Operation Lullaby

by socktron



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 16:38:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4632456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/socktron/pseuds/socktron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jake and Amy face one of their greatest challenges yet: babysitting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Operation Lullaby

**Author's Note:**

> For #13.

"Sarge! I need your help, it's an emergency!" Normally, Jake would have assumed that Amy was upset about how he'd spilled Coke all over her paperwork, or about the small trail of ants crawling from his desk to hers, but Amy hadn't even looked over at him. She was more preoccupied with the tiny bundled baby in her arms.

"You had a baby?" he blurted out.

"What?" Amy hissed, then hurriedly lowered her tone as the baby stirred. "No -- do I look pregnant to you? It's my cousin's, his baby sitter cancelled and it's his date night with his wife." She turned to Terry, eyes pleading. "Please, Sarge, you're my only hope. I have no idea what to do with kids! "

"Oh, no, Santiago," Terry said, shaking his head. "I will back you up against criminals, bullets, and even Scully and Hitchcock, but I will not take on another baby. I already have two girls. One more and they'll outnumber us! We are barely holding back the forces of darkness as it is."

"Santiago, are you trying to just abandon this baby? You could screw up this kid's life forever! Every day he's going to remember how you left him and everyone else in his life is going to leave him." Amy stared at him. "I don't have abandonment issues. What are you talking about?" Jake said quickly. "You're the one with abandonment issues!"

"I'm not abandoning him!" Amy protested. "I'm just trying to give him to someone who actually knows what to do with him. I'm trying not to mess him up."

"Well, it can't be me. Why doesn't Peralta help you out? It's not like he's doing any work."

"Hey!" Jake said. "I'm working very hard on this house of cards, thank you. I'm about to set a new record." His card castle was the achievement of three hours' hard work in procrastinating on his paperwork.

"Scully!" Terry called out. "Peralta wants you to help him build his house of cards." Jake had sorely underestimated Terry's Machiavellian streak. He watched in unmitigated horror as Scully ambled over.

"Oh boy, I love these!" Scully said in delight. He reached out to take a card.

"No! Scully, don't--" Scully reached past Jake's flailing arms and dropped a card onto the top. Predictably, he misjudged the placement and sent the castle crashing down. The baby made a happy burbling sound of approval. At least someone was happy.

"Well, I guess I'm not doing any work now that Scully has demolished my dreams," Jake said disgustedly.

"Great! So you're free to help Santiago now."

"Sarge, do you really think Jake is going to be any help with a baby?" Amy said dubiously.

"Well, if we give Diaz the baby, she'll train him to beat up all the other babies on the playground. Boyle's not assertive enough, he'll be a pushover for the baby. I don't think I need to tell you why we can't leave a baby with Scully and Hitchcock." Everyone shuddered in unison. "Besides, Peralta thinks on the same level as the baby anyway. It'll be easy for him to relate."

"I'll take that as a compliment to my youthful spirit," Jake said. "Tons of people have babies, how hard can it be?"

\--

He began to regret those words a mere five minutes later. "Oh god, that smell," Amy said, gagging. She thrust the baby into his hands; Jake cradled the tiny thing against his better instincts, which were telling him to drop the source of the smell out a window. Most of the squad had already evacuated from the smell.

"I already had to change him once on the way here, it's your turn now," Amy said quickly. Given Amy's usual germophobia, he could imagine how that must have gone. He nodded, grimly accepting his fate.

"All right, prepare to meet your match," Jake said, carefully bouncing the baby and holding his breath. "Wait, what's his name?"

"Jake Peralta, meet Samuel Santiago," Amy said, as she started unpacking supplies from the baby's changing bag. Jake eyed the pile of diapers there with deep suspicion.

"Nice alliteration," Jake said, nodding. Samuel cried loudly in response. "Okay, Samuel, we'll get you changed soon, buddy, all right? Please stop crying, please stop crying."

He'd seen a video of someone changing a diaper back in sex ed in high school. It couldn't be that hard to wing it, right?

"Scully, get the nuclear waste basket. Boyle, where's the hazmat suit?" Jake demanded, carefully setting Samuel down on a towel.

"Here!" Boyle said, tossing the ensemble over. Jake carefully pulled on the gloves and face mask.

"All right. I'm going in," Jake said grimly. "If I die here, make sure that the memorial to my memory properly describes my courage in the face of certain death."

Boyle nodded. "You got it, Jake. "

"This is the most disgusting thing I have ever done on the force," Jake said as he gingerly pulled off the old diaper and dropped it into the nuclear waste basket. "Oh god, it's even more foul smelling now!" He carefully wiped Samuel down with a few baby wipes, though it was hard to maneuver with the thick biohazard gloves. On the other hand, it wasn't worth the risk using his bare hands. Who knew where that baby had been?

With a little bit of work, he managed to get the clean diaper on and fully secured, and all of the dirty wipes were dropped into the nuclear waste basket. Upon further thought, Jake pulled off the biohazard gloves and dropped those in as well. He'd better drop in the towel he'd changed Samuel on, just to be sure.

"Wait -- Jake, that's my cousin's! You can't just throw it away," Amy said in protest. Now that Samuel was clean, she'd picked up Samuel again

"It's for his own good, Santiago. Some things will just never be clean again," Jake said darkly.

"It's for the best," Boyle said in agreement. "I'll take this to the biohazard disposal immediately."

"Good man, Boyle."

Amy just shook her head and turned back to Samuel. "All right, Samuel, this would be a great time for a nap, wouldn't it?" she said with forced cheer, rocking him back and forth. "Aren't you getting tired and sleepy?" Samuel pounded one chubby fist against her chest.

"What if we sang him a lullaby?" Jake suggested. "Twinkle, twinkle, little star…"

"How I wonder what you are," Amy joined in. She had a pretty voice. He'd have to come up with more excuses to get her to sing in the future.

"Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky…. Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are…."

Samuel had at least stopped pounding his fists and was watching Jake closely with his dark eyes. The little terror was cute when he wasn't emitting horrific scents, at least.

"I think it's working," Amy said quietly. "How many other kid's songs do you know?"

They made it through Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Frère Jacques, Mary Had a Little Lamb, and Rock-a-Bye Baby before Samuel began to doze off.

"How long before your cousin comes to pick up Samuel?" Jake whispered.

"My cousin said they were going out to dinner, so they'll probably be out for a few hours?" Amy guessed. She was stroking her hands through Samuel's fine dark curls, soothing him wordlessly.

"Oh, that's not too bad then. It must almost be time for them to get back, right?" Jake said in relief.

Amy gave him a look. "Jake, it's only been half an hour."

"Come on, it's got to have been two hours," Jake said, whipping out his phone and wincing at the lying, terrible numbers. "Oh god, how does anyone manage to have kids and not go crazy?"

"I know, right?" Amy agreed. "I don't know how my cousin does it."

"Our kids are going to be such a mess," Jake said, and then immediately wished for a sinkhole to appear and swallow him whole. He backtracked quickly. "I mean, our totally separate kids. Not that we'd have kids together, why would anyone think that?"

"Yeah," Amy said slowly, studying him. "Why would anyone think that?" She leaned in, pressing her mouth against Jake's. It was nothing like their locker kiss had been; this was just the barest touch of her mouth, fleeting and teasing.

"It's totally crazy," Jake said, but he couldn't stop grinning.


End file.
